Can I Write It? Yes, You Can!

Over the years, I've seen a few people ask: “I have this great idea - will it work?” The answer I’d give to this is always the same: “Almost certainly, provided you write it well”. Unless your idea is total rubbish, it will probably work if you write it well enough. It may not be brilliant, it may be a bit derivative or not quite add up when you put the book down, but for the purpose of reading the novel – yes, it is very likely to work.

So someone might ask: “I’ve got this idea for this prince who goes on a quest to avenge his mother’s death, but really she hasn’t died, she faked her death because she hated her husband the king who used to beat her and she’s gone off to be a vigilante like Batman but more medieval and this prince doesn’t know it and swears to kill this Batman person because he’s breaking the king’s laws which is treason, but he doesn’t realise that it’s his own mum, and meanwhile she’s being blackmailed by pirates. Would this work?” And the answer is “Sure, why not?"

Medieval Batman, by Sacha Goldberger

Say every element of this story is well written. Say the two main characters, the prince and the queen, are really well constructed and believable. Say the king beating the queen and the queen escaping from him are credibly portrayed. Say the training and the being Batman and the quest elements are exciting and well-paced. And the pirates are suitably villainous. Why shouldn’t it work?

Of course, there are certain things that you may have trouble with when deciding what kind of things you want in your story. In particular, I'd be wary of writing of experiences that other people may have had that you haven’t, because it will be far, far easier to call you out. You may be able to convincingly depict a shuttle flight to Mars, based on your work on a cross-channel ferry, but you may not be able to write convincingly about a divorce, because nobody you know has been involved in one. And the divorce is much easier to get wrong, because other people will be able to turn to you with certainty and say “It’s not like that”.

On the ferry to Calais, Mars.

Someone (possibly J.N. Williamson) once said that originality wasn’t about doing what had never been done before, but doing what you wanted. The originality is often not in the basic concept, but in the treatment, the way that it's approached. If you have an idea that seems strong even after you’ve turned it over and thought about it, and that idea is not glaringly offensive to anyone with a brain, the question then becomes “Can you write this well?” 

And, ultimately, nobody can answer that until you’ve tried.